When a company decides they need to focus on their SEO the first question that they have to ask themselves is if they are going to perform the services themselves in house or if they are going to go with a third party agency. Each scenario has their own merits and drawbacks so it is important that you are aware of both situations.
Below we are going to explore what you need to be aware of when you decide to go with in house or an agency for your SEO needs.
Resource allocation
Before you make your decision you need to break down what resources are going to be invested into getting your SEO campaign up and running. For in house you will have to have a dedicated employee working on your online presence rather than their actual work. Sometimes this can be more of an investment than actually shelling out some money per month for an agency fee. If you aren’t at the stage of having employees that individual could end up being you. That means you have to take the time out of your day maybe at night to work on your SEO.
If you were to choose to go with an agency you would be paying them a monthly fee (or otherwise disclosed) to run and optimise your campaign. This is very handy for business owners who don’t have the additional time to invest into running their own account.
Industry knowledge
The main reason people tend to go with an agency for their SEO needs is because they are enlisting the services of experts in the field. SEO is a very lengthy and in depth process so it always pays to have an expert in your corner. There are many different avenues and methods you can implement to improve your efforts but if they aren’t backed up with the proper knowledge you could be left high and dry.
This fact is definitely important when knowing which methods to use. There are both black hat and white hat methods that can help boost your ranking. White hat is seen as the ethical and organic methods that can help grow your website through honest means. Black hat on the other hand is the opposite and can have some negative effects if you are caught.
Google and many other search engines frown upon websites that implement black hat methods and will penalise your website for using them. Extreme penalties can result in your website being removed from the results page altogether. When you attempt to do your SEO in house you run the risk of implementing a black hat method by mistake. Experts know what they are doing and won’t (or shouldn’t) implement anything that could come back to bite you.
The price
When small businesses decide to do their digital marketing needs in house they mainly do it because the investment is too high to go with a third party. However doing it in house could end up costing you more in the long run. We mentioned before that you will have to invest time or an employee to run the campaign where with an agency you don’t. An agency allows you to focus on running your business and make your profits through that.
Kieran is the Social Media Manager and SEO Expert at SEO Shark. He is an expert in Social Media, link building, PPC and of course SEO. In his time off work Kieran enjoys reading and playing rugby, as well as following all kinds of sports! You can read some more of his articles here.